Voiceless
by Griselda Banks
Summary: Oneshot. The tale of the boy who had every voice except his own. No pairings intended. Rated for intense themes.


**Author's Note: This isn't a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination, and I'm not completely satisfied with the writing, but I rather like the idea. This was my first attempt at horror, so feel free to tell me how badly I did. I wrote this last Halloween, inspired by a conversation with Dailenna. We were talking about Lance Krall, a guy who is very adept at mimicking all manner of accents. He does prank calls, and in each one that I've seen, his voice is different. So Dai and I were wondering what his real voice was like. Then I said, sort of off-hand, "if he even has a voice... seriously disturbing fairy-tale-esque thoughts" and that set me off writing this. I hope you enjoy this, even if the writing is kinda blah at times. Oh, and I was also trying out some new little techniques that fit in with the horrifying stuff, so that makes me happy.  
**

_Dooooot... Dooooot... Dooooot... Click._ "Rockbell Automail, how may I help you?"

"Hey, Winry, how's it going?"

"Ed?!"

Ed laughed at her surprised voice. "Me and Al are coming to Risenpool. Tell Granny to make stew, okay?"

"What?!" Winry's voice was, if possible, even more surprised. "You're _coming_ to _Risenpool?!_ And you're _calling_ first? Who are you, and what did you do to Edward Elric?!"

Laughing again, Ed replied, "C'mon, Winry. You said you wouldn't let us in the door if we didn't call next time we came back, so I thought I'd better telephone if I didn't want to sleep outside."

"Wait a second." Winry's voice became wary. "You didn't break your automail again, did you?"

Ed winced; he'd been hoping she wouldn't get around to that minor detail. "Well...j-just a bit, okay?"

He could tell she was frowning from the way her voice lowered when she said, "What exactly does 'just a bit' mean?"

"Uh...well, see, this guy sorta bashed it up a bit, so it kinda...um... Well, to put it simply, I'll need a new covering for my arm, and...a couple...new...joints?" Ed said the last several words carefully, hoping the receiver wouldn't explode in his hand when the storm came.

To his surprise, Winry paused and then said quickly, "Um, you guys don't have to come all the way out here. I can make a business trip to Central, you know."

"No, don't worry about it!" Ed protested, immensely relieved. Maybe this time he wouldn't be greeted with a wrench to the head. "We're already on our way; we've just stopped in East City to switch trains. We should get there about six or so."

"No, you can't!" Winry cried, her voice suddenly shrill and worried. "Listen, Ed, don't come-"

"Hurry up, Brother!" Al suddenly called. "The train's leaving!"

"Ack! I'll see you tonight, Winry!" Ed threw the receiver haphazardly onto the hook and raced after his armored brother, who was calling to him and trotting after the departing train. And Ed was too busy trying to catch onto the last car to reflect on the panicked tone in Winry's voice.

* * *

Ed stepped down from the train onto the Risenpool platform and happily drew a breath full of familiar Risenpool air – the smell of sun-dried grass, cows, and pine needles from the forest at the edge of the scattered village. "It's good to be home, isn't it?" he asked Al.

Al hardly had the time to murmur a "Yeah!" when they were nearly bowled over by a teenage girl with long black hair.

"You idiots!" the girl screeched at them. "Why did you have to come?! I told you I'd come to you instead!"

Ed blinked at the girl in amazement. "_Winry?_" he gasped. "Is that _you?_"

"Of course it's me!" Winry snapped. "Who else would it be?"

"You...You dyed your hair!" Al cried, pointing at her black locks.

"And you should too, you idiot!" Winry hissed, grabbing the hood of Ed's red coat and pulling it down over his eyes.

"Winry, what're you-?" Ed stopped trying to take his hood off when he saw Winry's eyes, overflowing with worry. "W-Winry? What's going on?"

Winry just tucked his long braid into the hood and said softly, "Hurry up. We need to get home before Granny starts to worry."

All the way to the Rockbells' house, Ed and Al tried to get some kind of explanation out of Winry, but she would only say, "Shut up and keep moving. I can't answer here."

Only when she had crossed the threshold of the yellow house and bolted the door behind the three of them did Winry relax. Shoulders sagging, she let out a long breath and called out, "Granny, we're home!"

"Thank heavens," came a familiar voice as the tiny Rockbell poked her head out the kitchen door. She gave Ed a piercing look, then said in place of a greeting, "You should've stayed in Central, you know."

Ed pushed his hood off irritably and demanded, "What's going on around here? C'mon, somebody answer me!"

"Please," Al added meekly.

Winry sighed and pushed Ed towards the kitchen. "You might as well get comfy, I suppose. This is going to take a while."

* * *

"So let me get this straight," Ed said, finally putting his spoon down after three large helpings of vegetable stew. "There's some weirdo who's been rampaging around killing people, but he only goes for...blondes?"

"Not killing," Winry corrected, nervously playing with a strand of her now-dark hair. "He...does something to them, though. No doctors can ever find anything wrong with them, but..." She took a deep breath, then said in a quavering voice, "None of them ever talk again. They don't make a sound. I've seen one that he's got at. She just sat there, shivering, and stared straight ahead as though she couldn't see anybody else."

Ed felt an involuntary shudder run down his spine.

"And...no one's ever seen this man?" Al asked hesitantly.

"There _was_ one eyewitness report," Granny Pinako said as she filled her pipe, tamping the tobacco down more vigorously than was perhaps necessary. "It was a farmer who happened to look out his window. Said he saw what looked like a naked teenage boy, but when he went outside the boy was gone, with a victim in his place."

"That's horrible!" Al cried, sounding disgusted.

Ed had to agree; his stomach was already churning, and he wished he hadn't eaten so much stew. "Is this guy...insane or something?" he asked.

"That's what people are saying," Winry nodded. "So the police told everyone to be careful, especially people with lighter hair."

"But that's such a weird thing to single people out by!" Ed exploded. "I mean, Scar was understandable – just killing State Alchemists because they destroyed his country – but attacking people with _blonde hair_?"

Winry sighed. "Just be careful, Ed, okay? I don't want anything to happen to you."

Ed cracked a smile, hoping to alleviate the gloomy cloud that seemed to have descended upon the kitchen. "Don't worry. I'm not planning on losing my voice any time soon. I wouldn't be able to insult my stuperior officer that way!"

* * *

"You look funny with black hair," Al giggled.

"Oh, shut up," Ed said irritably, hastily twisting his shiny black locks into a braid. He hated the way he looked now, but it couldn't be helped. Winry had refused to go to bed until he had finished the transmutation to change his hair color, so he had been forced to change it when he would much rather have kept it golden as it always was. He glared at his reflection now, noting how horribly his black hair clashed with his golden eyes, and promised himself he'd change it back as soon as they set foot on the train to Central in a few days' time.

Ed gave his reflection one last murderous look and limped out of the room on his damaged leg. Winry was onto him almost immediately, demanding sharply, "Into the workshop! I have to fix your leg before you make it any worse."

"But what about breakfast?" Ed complained in horror, his stomach growling.

Winry's blue eyes were dangerous. "_Now._"

Ed could have sworn that Al was smiling. "I'll get you something and bring it to you, Brother," he said, making his way to the kitchen.

Heaving a sigh, Ed allowed Winry to push him into the workshop and somehow managed to endure all of her prodding and poking and inspecting while his stomach continued to growl. Five hours later, Winry finally pronounced him fit to walk again. "And don't complain!" she told him, waggling her finger. "Just be happy you didn't need an entirely new leg."

"Yeah, yeah," Ed waved her words aside with a careless hand. "What's for lunch?"

Winry rolled her eyes.

* * *

Ed ignored Winry and Granny Pinako's protests when he announced he was going to visit his mother's grave. They would be leaving again first thing in the morning (much to Winry's dismay), and it had been too long since he had put flowers on the grave. Apparently, Al was busy chopping wood, so Ed decided not to bother him. _He doesn't have to worry about his stupid hair color,_ Ed grumbled to himself as he trudged along the path to the cemetery. _He doesn't even _have_ any hair._ Maybe there were some things about that body to be thankful for, after all.

This whole insane-naked-boy thing worried Ed immensely. The thought that someone's retarded child could be running around the woods both scared and saddened him. He wondered why the boy's parents hadn't contacted the police, and then encountered a chilling thought: _Maybe they didn't want him anymore. Maybe they left him in the forest by himself, hoping he'd die or something. _How could any parent do that? That was even worse than what Hohenheim had done to _his_ family!

And suddenly, inexplicably, all the fear and anger and apprehension that had been building up inside him gave way to immense pity. _That poor kid,_ he thought. _He must be really scared and confused. I bet he doesn't even realize that he's doing...whatever it is he's doing._ Ed wished he could do something to help – he was a State Alchemist, after all! – but he couldn't think of any way to help. If there'd only been that one brief eyewitness, and if no one could figure out what was wrong with the victims, then there wasn't much anyone could do. It would be impossible to scour the entire forest around Risenpool to try to find the boy, so unless they literally ran into each other, Ed couldn't really think of any way to get to the bottom of this.

Ed sighed as he strode up the side of the hill, passing between the white headstones until he found his mother's. No sooner had he laid the flowers on the ground and said, "Hi, Mom," than a scream split the air. Ed jerked upright, trying to discern which direction it had come from.

To his right, a woman's voice called out, "Help!"

Even as Ed turned and began to hurry towards the thicket of trees where he had heard the voice, there came another cry, this time a little boy's. "Mama! That boy's gonna eat me!"

"G-Get away!" a man's voice called, panicked and trembling.

Ed broke into a desperate run, hands poised to clap if necessary. He neared the thicket, but the trees grew so close together that he couldn't see through them. The bushes rustled, and Ed skidded around to the other side of the thicket, where the voices came from.

But there was no woman behind the trees. There was no small, frightened boy, nor was there a man. Ed stood there, his hands inches from each other, frozen and immobile. He couldn't believe his eyes; he didn't _want_ to believe his eyes. But he could not deny what they saw.

He screamed.

* * *

"Thank you, Al," Granny Pinako said when Al brought in the last armful of firewood. "That should last us a good long while now."

"Anything I can do to help," Al replied. "Um...have you seen my brother?"

Pinako frowned. "Come to think of it, I haven't seen him since just after lunch."

"He was gonna go visit your mom's grave, remember?" Winry called from the open workshop door, where she was clearing away her tools. "Hasn't he come back yet?"

A troubled, sad thought settled into Al's nonexistent heart. "I'll go get him," he announced, ducking back out of the door he had just come in by. As he set off for the hilltop cemetery, Al considered why Ed might be taking so long. It wasn't a pleasant thought. Al sighed (or at least made the sound of it, since he had no breath); he could just see the sad look that would surely be on Ed's face. Ed was probably reliving that grief all over again; Al had seen it happen many times. It pained him to think of his brother doing that to himself, blaming himself for everything that happened, letting all the guilt rest on his shoulders alone... But that was what Edward Elric did, and Al knew it would probably never end, not until they got their bodies back anyway.

When Al looked up as he crested the hill, he was startled to find no figure silhouetted against the setting sun. He rushed forward, searching the ground for a black figure, but his brother was nowhere in sight. "Brother?" he called to the empty air all around. "Where are you?"

_That's strange,_ Al thought, scanning the rest of the cemetery for any sign of Ed, but the hilltop was deserted. _I thought for sure he'd be here. Maybe he's already headed back, and we missed each other completely._ Had he been able to, Al would have smiled. Yes, that was probably what happened.

Still, Al decided it probably wouldn't hurt to walk through the rows of graves, just in case. He couldn't imagine why Ed would visit any other graves besides Trisha Elric's and Winry's parents', but one could never be too careful.

The Risenpool cemetery was rather small, so Al soon scoured all of it. He had just begun to circle back when he saw a dark blob over by a thicket of trees. The light was receding rather fast, so it might have just been a large rock or a log, but Al crossed over to it curiously. His eyes pressed against the darkness, straining to make out what it was, and when he was almost upon the thicket, he stopped with a gasp.

He only paused for a moment, and then Al rushed forward. "Brother!" The dark form lay still, unmoving on its face. Al fearfully turned the body over, and gasped again when he saw his brother's eyes.

Ed's golden eyes stared straight ahead, not seeming to see Al or the trees or the sky or anything of the physical world. They stared into space, unfocused, wide and filled with terror. It took Al a moment to realize it, since his metal body couldn't feel, but after a few moments he realized that Ed was shivering all over. Even the muscles in his neck trembled.

"B-Brother..." Al murmured, stricken. "What happened to you?"

But Ed didn't answer; indeed, he made no sign that he had even heard Al at all.

"Can't you hear me? Come on, it's me! Al!" Slowly, a horrible realization sank over him, one that would have made him stagger had he been standing. "No... It can't be... Brother!" Al cried, his voice anguished. "Please, no... This has to be a joke... Tell me you're joking, Brother..." But Al knew that Ed wouldn't joke about this. Ed's jokes might always be lame, but he knew better than to play around with something this serious.

Al felt as though his nonexistent heart was beginning to break. "I'm so sorry, Brother," he whispered. "I should have been there by your side. I'm so sorry..." Al picked his older brother up and cradled him gently in his arms. He could tell Ed was still shaking, because now he could hear the rattling his armor made. Wishing he could cry, Al began to trudge home with his burden.

* * *

Winry was crying, and Al felt like joining her. They had put Ed to bed, piled all the blankets in the house on top of him, but still he shivered and shook as though his very heart was frozen. And still he stared straight up at the ceiling, not responding to any of them. He made no sound, though after an inspection Granny Pinako (who had experience in medicine) said there appeared to be nothing wrong with his vocal cords or lungs or...anything, for that matter. It was, beyond all shadow of a doubt, that boy's doing.

Al felt so useless! It was as though Ed had died or gone into a coma, but instead of being able to put his hope in medicine or even something like the Philosopher's Stone, Al could find nothing to grasp onto. He had often heard the saying, _If it ain't broke, don't fix it,_ but now Al thought it should be altered to, _If it ain't broke, you _can't_ fix it._

Finally, Al didn't think he could stand it any longer. He got to his feet with a loud clank, but Winry didn't look up from where she bent over Ed's left hand, gripping it tightly and soaking it with her tears. _You said her next tears would be tears of happiness,_ Al silently accused his brother, and then he turned away. He couldn't stand looking into that dead, unresponsive face anymore.

He didn't really know where he was going when he let himself out of the house and began to walk. Come to think of it, he didn't really care. His soul felt unusually empty, just like the armor that made up this temporary body. He almost didn't even feel sad anymore; he was just a void inside. Gradually he realized that his feet had taken him to the burnt remains of the Elric house, and he remembered sadly how he had stood in front of the house with his brother years ago, setting fire to it so they would never come back. _Winry told us not to come,_ he thought. _We should have listened to her._

But wait! Was that-? Yes! Someone stood before the old ruins, someone with light hair that glistened in the moonlight. Al rushed forward, but he skidded to a halt when he realized that the someone was completely naked. He gasped, realizing just who this was, and the teenage boy slowly turned to face him.

The whole world seemed to swirl in a vortex of confusing emotions that battled each other for prominence. Al felt as though he was speeding through a long tunnel, or falling down a dark hole, watching the world from a very far-off place, and becoming farther with every second. But then the boy spoke, and Al crashed painfully back to earth.

"I knew you'd come eventually," the boy said.

Al let out a sound halfway between a moan and a sob. It sounded strange even to his own ears. He knew the voice that came from those lips. He knew the nuances, the inflections, the way the end of the sentence nearly slipped off the edge of the world, as though it teetered on the brink of eternal darkness. This was the voice of his brother.

"Brother...?"

The boy laughed, and it was Ed's laugh, but much, much colder. It was as though the sun had been frozen and now sent out shards of ice instead of rays of light. "You're smarter than that, Al. You know what I am."

Al recoiled from that statement, violently trying to deny the truth of it. But he found he couldn't, and after wrestling with himself for several moments, he choked out, "You're...me."

The boy tipped back his head and laughed. Al jerked backward; it was so unnerving to hear that laugh he knew so well, distorted by this boy's lips, in the body he knew was his own. "You have such a way of putting things," the boy chuckled. "I'd forgotten." He lowered his silver eyes to look Al full in the face. A cruel smile curved his lips upward. "Well, then? Shall we?"

"I don't...understand what you mean..." Al said desperately. He wanted to run away, but the iron boots of his feet seemed rooted to the ground.

This time, the boy did not laugh. "You know perfectly well what I mean, fool. I've not pounded on those doors for the last five years for nothing. I've wanted for so long to meet my soul, and now at last I get the chance to!" An ugly smirk twisted his face into the mask of a monster. "But now... Haven't you realized it yet, Alphonse Elric? It's too late now."

"Too late for what?" Al squeaked.

"Too late for soul and body to become one again. Too late for either of us to have the desire of our hearts. You took too long, dear soul, and now look at me. Look at me!" Ed's voice tore out of his throat, and his eyes took on a sheen of madness. "I'm resigned to this. Resigned to preying on the bodies of those who look like me and you, to stealing their souls in the hope that I might fill this gaping hole inside me." His voice fell to a whisper, and tears threatened to spill out of his eyes. "Do you know how much I've wanted to have a soul? Can you even imagine what that's like?"

"If it's anything like what having no body is like," Al murmured, "then I don't think I want to."

"Look at me," Al's body moaned, and Al's heart wrenched painfully to hear his brother's voice so pained. "I'm nothing but a monster with the torn shreds of a dozen souls, trying to piece them together into something whole. But I can never be whole, Alphonse Elric. I can never be whole." And then he straightened up, the madness returning to his eyes and smile. "But neither can you."

"What?" Al gasped in surprise, strangely unable to back away when his body slowly walked towards him.

Ed's voice chuckled in Al's throat. "That's right, my dear soul. We can never be one now." In a sudden, swift movement, Al's body lashed out with a leg, knocking Al's helmet onto the ground.

Al couldn't move. He didn't know what to do, what to say, what even to think. All he could do was let his own body climb inside the armor and lean up against the blood seal in the back of the armor. Al shivered inwardly as he felt his own breath against the circle of blood. His body let out a pleasurable sigh to be so close to his soul. Al was beginning to lose track of who he was, which body he was in. He was the armor, yet he was the flesh-and-blood body. He was both, yet neither, and looked down on everything from above, below, and inside.

"How long I've desired this," he whispered against his soul, tasting the culmination of many long years, relishing it, rolling it around his mouth, carressing it with his tongue, and then swallowing it down to churn about deep inside him. "I ought to have thanked my brother," he reflected, "for keeping me alive for this long. Though I barely kept from starving as it was."

"Brother tried his hardest for both of us!" he protested against himself. "I can only be thankful!"

"And I can only curse him," he added, after a second thought. "If he had only tried harder – if _I_ had only tried harder – then I wouldn't have to settle for this half-happiness now." He let out a sigh, once again feeling his breath tingle against his soul. "Time to end this."

Al chuckled with inward pleasure, even as he recoiled with overwhelming terror. He ran his tongue over his lips; he could still taste all those many souls he had ripped apart. His brother's had tasted the best, he thought – like sunlight and new leather, like catnip and milk. But he knew his own soul would taste the best of all. He stuck out his tongue, wavering mere centimeters from the iron, and then closed the gap, running his tongue across the blood. He briefly tasted the tangy mixture of blood and metal, and then-


End file.
